Saturday, March 25, 2017

Portuguese
traders first landed in Japan in 1543, followed soon thereafter by
Francis Xavier and other Jesuits. So many locals started converting
to Christianity that, less than a decade later, the emperor issued an
edict banning Catholicism and ordering the expulsion of all
missionaries.

Violators
were forced to either renounce the religion or face crucifixion,
which resulted in many of the faithful's going underground to avoid
persecution. Consequently, when a cleric disappeared, it was often
difficult to discern whether the missing person had been martyred or
was merely in hiding.

This
was the case with Father Cristovao Ferreira (Liam Neeson) who had
been spreading the gospel around Japan for close to a quarter-century
before he suddenly vanished without a trace after sending an ominous
last letter to a friend. The ensuing silence prompted a couple of his
proteges, Fathers Garrpe (Adam Driver) and Rodrigues (Andrew
Garfield) to mount a desperate search for their mentor, despite the
fact that discovery of their identities might mean instant death.

In
1633, the perilous trek began, and that ill-advised expedition is the
subject of Silence, a faith-based docudrama directed and co-written
by Martin Scorcese. The movie represents a bit of a departure for the
legendary Oscar-winner whose name is most closely associated with
gory gangster flicks like Goodfellas, The Departed and Mean Streets.

Based
on Shusaku Endo's 1996 best seller of the same name, the film was a
labor of love which took Scorcese almost three decades to bring to
the big screen. The legendary filmmaker ostensibly identifies with
the picture's protagonists questioning whether God even exists.

Clocking
in at a patience-testing 160 minutes, the deliberately-paced
production could easily have shaved another half-hour off the final
cut and still delivered the same emotional impact. Blessed with a
trio of inspired lead performances, Silence is nevertheless apt to be
well received by Born Again Bible thumpers.

A
thought-provoking, historical drama chronicling the ultimate test of
faith.

Very
Good (3 stars)Rated R for
disturbing violenceIn English and
Japanese with subtitlesRunning time: 160
minutesDistributor: Paramount
Home Media DistributionBlu-ray Extra: Martin Scorcese's
Journey into Silence

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KamWilliams.com

The Sly Fox Film Reviews publishes the content of film critic Kam Williams. Voted Most Outstanding Journalist of the Decade by the Disilgold Soul Literary Review in 2008, Kam Williams is a syndicated film and book critic who writes for 100+ publications around the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. He is a member of the New York Film Critics Online, the NAACP Image Awards Nominating Committee and Rotten Tomatoes.

In addition to a BA in Black Studies from Cornell, he has an MA in English from Brown, an MBA from The Wharton School, and a JD from Boston University. Kam lives in Princeton, NJ with his wife and son.